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Film-makingFilm-makingFilm-makingFilm-makingFilm-making

Ingmar Bergman is a well known Swedish director of

films noted for their starkness, their subtle use of black

and white and ‘shades’ of those extremes, the ambiguity

of their content, and a certain brooding presence that

seems to pervade them all. The list of Bergman films is

long; his best known include The Seventh Seal (1957),Wild Strawberries (1958), The Virgin Spring (1960),The Silence (1963), Persona (1967), The Passion ofAnna (1970), and Cries and Whispers (1973)—this last

film in colour, though emphasising red in all its shadings.

In the following selection, the Introduction to FourScreen-plays by Ingmar Bergman (1960), Bergman

discusses how he views the art of film-making.

During the shooting of The Virgin Spring, we were up in thenorthern province of Dalarna in May and it was early inthe morning, about half past seven. The landscape thereis rugged, and our company was working by a little lake inthe forest. It was very cold, about 30 degrees, and fromtime to time a few snowflakes fell through the grey, rain-dimmed sky. The company was dressed in a strange varietyof clothing—raincoats, oil slickers, Icelandic sweaterjackets, old blankets, coachmen’s coats, medieval robes.Our men had laid some ninety feet of rusty, buckling railover the difficult terrain, to dolly the camera on. We wereall helping with the equipment—actors, electricians, make-up men, script girl, sound crew—mainly to keep warm.Suddenly someone shouted and pointed toward the sky.Then we saw a crane floating high above the fir trees, andthen another, and then several cranes floating majestically

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Ingmar Bergman1918-2007

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in a circle above us. We all dropped what we were doingand ran to the top of a nearby hill to see the cranes better.We stood there for a long time, until they turned westwardand disappeared over the forest. And suddenly I thought:this is what it means to make a movie in Sweden. This iswhat can happen, this is how we work together with ourold equipment and little money, and this is how we cansuddenly drop everything for the love of four cranes floatingabove the tree tops.

Childhood Foretells Future

My association with film goes back to the world ofchildhood. My grandmother had a very large old apartmentin Uppsala. I used to sit under the dining-room table there,‘listening’ to the sunshine which came in through thegigantic windows. The cathedral bells went ding-dong, andthe sunlight moved about and ‘sounded’ in a special way.One day, when winter was giving way to spring and I wasfive years old, a piano was being played in the nextapartment. It played waltzes, nothing but waltzes. On thewall hung a large picture of Venice. As the sunlight movedacross the picture the water in the canal began to flow,the pigeons flew up from the square, people talked andgesticulated. Bells sounded, not those of Uppsala Cathedralbut from the picture itself. And the piano music also camefrom that remarkable picture of Venice.

A child who is born and brought up in a vicarageacquires an early familiarity with life and death behindthe scenes. Father performed funerals, marriages,baptisms, gave advice and prepared sermons. The devilwas an early acquaintance, and in the child’s mind therewas a need to personify him. This is where my magiclantern came in. It consisted of a small metal box with acarbide lamp—I can still remember the smell of the hotmetal—and coloured glass slides: Red Riding Hood andthe Wolf, and all the others. And the wolf was the Devil,without horns but with a tail and a gaping red mouth,strangely real yet incomprehensible, a picture of wickednessand temptation on the flowered wall of the nursery.

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When I was ten years old I received my first, rattlingfilm projector, with its chimney and lamp. I found it bothmystifying and fascinating. The first film I had was ninefeet long and brown in colour. It showed a girl lying asleepin a meadow, who woke up and stretched out her arms,then disappeared to the right. That was all there was to it.The film was a great success and was projected every nightuntil it broke and could not be mended any more.

This little rickety machine was my first conjuring set.And even today I remind myself with childish excitementthat I am really a conjurer, since cinematography is basedon deception of the human eye. I have worked it out that ifI see a film which has a running time of one hour, I sitthrough twenty-seven minutes of complete darkness—theblankness between frames. When I show a film I am guiltyof deceit. I use an apparatus which is constructed to takeadvantage of a certain human weakness, an apparatuswith which I can sway my audience in a highly emotionalmanner—make them laugh, scream with fright, smile,believe in fairy stories, become indignant, feel shocked,charmed, deeply moved or perhaps yawn with boredom.Thus I am either an impostor or, when the audience iswilling to be taken in, a conjurer. I perform conjuring trickswith apparatus so expensive and so wonderful that anyentertainer in history would have given anything to have it.

Stop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and Think

1. What childhood memories does the author recollectthat had a bearing on his later involvement with film-making?

2. What connection does the author draw between film-making and conjuring?

Split Second Impressions

A film for me begins with something very vague—achance remark or a bit of conversation, a hazy but agreeableevent unrelated to any particular situation. It can be a fewbars of music, a shaft of light across the street. Sometimes

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in my work at the theatre I have envisioned actors madeup for yet unplayed roles.

These are split second impressions that disappear asquickly as they come, yet leave behind a mood—likepleasant dreams. It is a mental state, not an actual story,but one abounding in fertile associations and images. Mostof all, it is a brightly coloured thread sticking out of thedark sack of the unconscious. If I begin to wind up thisthread, and do it carefully, a complete film will emerge.

This primitive nucleus strives to achieve definite form,moving in a way that may be lazy and half asleep at first.Its stirring is accompanied by vibrations and rhythmswhich are very special and unique to each film. The picturesequences then assume a pattern in accordance with theserhythms, obeying laws born out of and conditioned by myoriginal stimulus.

If that embryonic substance seems to have enoughstrength to be made into a film, I decide to materialise it.Then comes something very complicated and difficult: the

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transformation of rhythms, moods, atmosphere, tensions,sequences, tones and scents into words and sentences,into an understandable screenplay.

This is an almost impossible task. The only thing thatcan be satisfactorily transferred from that original complexof rhythms and moods is the dialogue, and even dialogue isa sensitive substance which may offer resistance. Writtendialogue is like a musical score, almost incomprehensibleto the average person. Its interpretation demands a technicalknack plus a certain kind of imagination and feeling—qualities which are so often lacking, even among actors.One can write dialogue, but how it should be delivered, itsrhythm and tempo, what is to take place between lines—allthis must be omitted for practical reasons. Such a detailedscript would be unreadable. I try to squeeze instructions asto location, characterisation and atmosphere into myscreenplays in understandable terms, but the success ofthis depends on my writing ability and the perceptivenessof the reader, which are not always predictable.

The Rhythm of a Film

Now we come to essentials, by which I mean montage,rhythm and the relation of one picture to another—thevital third dimension without which the film is merely adead product from a factory. Here I cannot clearly give akey, as in a musical score, nor a specific idea of the tempowhich determines the relationship of the elements involved.It is quite impossible for me to indicate the way in whichthe film ‘breathes’ and pulsates.

I have often wished for a kind of notation which wouldenable me to put on paper all the shades and tones of myvision, to record distinctly the inner structure of a film.For when I stand in the artistically devastating atmosphereof the studio, my hands and head full of all the trivial andirritating details that go with motion-picture production,it often takes a tremendous effort to remember how Ioriginally saw and thought out this or that sequence, orwhat was the relation between the scene of four weeks agoand that of today. If I could express myself clearly, in

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explicit symbols, then this problem would be almosteliminated and I could work with absolute confidence thatwhenever I liked I could prove the relationship betweenthe part and the whole and put my finger on the rhythm,the continuity of the film.

Thus the script is a very imperfect technical basis for afilm. And there is another important point in thisconnection which I should like to mention. Film has nothingto do with literature; the character and substance of thetwo art forms are usually in conflict. This probably hassomething to do with the receptive process of the mind.The written word is read and assimilated by a consciousact of the will in alliance with the intellect; little by littleit affects the imagination and the emotions. The process isdifferent with a motion picture. When we experience a film,we consciously prime ourselves for illusion. Putting asidewill and intellect, we make way for it in our imagination.The sequence of pictures plays directly on our feelings.

Music works in the same fashion; I would say thatthere is no art form that has so much in common with filmas music. Both affect our emotions directly, not via theintellect. And film is mainly rhythm; it is inhalation andexhalation in continuous sequence. Ever since childhood,music has been my great source of recreation andstimulation, and I often experience a film or play musically.

Stop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and Think

1. What is the nature of the first impressions that formthe basis for a film?

2. Which art form is film-making closest to? What isthe reason for the similarity?

Film and Written Literature

It is mainly because of this difference between filmand literature that we should avoid making films out ofbooks. The irrational dimension of a literary work, the germof its existence, is often untranslatable into visual terms—and it, in turn, destroys the special, irrational dimensionof the film. If, despite this, we wish to translate something

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literary into film terms, we must make an infinite numberof complicated adjustments which often bear little or nofruit in proportion to the effort expended.

I myself have never had any ambition to be an author.I do not want to write novels, short stories, essays,biographies, or even plays for the theatre. I only want tomake films—films about conditions, tensions, pictures,rhythms and characters which are in one way or anotherimportant to me. The motion picture, with its complicatedprocess of birth, is my method of saying what I want to myfellow men. I am a film-maker, not an author.

Thus the writing of the script is a difficult period buta useful one, for it compels me to prove logically the validityof my ideas. In doing this, I am caught in a conflict—aconflict between my need to transmit a complicatedsituation through visual images, and my desire for absoluteclarity. I do not intend my work to be solely for the benefitof myself or the few, but for the entertainment of the generalpublic. The wishes of the public are imperative. Butsometimes I risk following my own impulse, and it hasbeen shown that the public can respond with surprisingsensitivity to the most unconventional line of development.

When shooting begins, the most important thing isthat those who work with me feel a definite contact, thatall of us somehow cancel out our conflicts through workingtogether. We must pull in one direction for the sake of thework at hand. Sometimes this leads to dispute. But themore definite and clear the ‘marching orders’, the easier itis to reach the goal which has been set. This is the basisfor my conduct as director, and perhaps the explanation ofmuch of the nonsense that has been written about me.

While I cannot let myself be concerned with what peoplethink and say about me personally, I believe that reviewersand critics have every right to interpret my films as theylike. I refuse to interpret my work to others, and I cannottell the critic what to think; each person has the right tounderstand a film as he sees it. Either he is attracted orrepelled. A film is made to create reaction. If the audiencedoes not react one way or another, it is an indifferent workand worthless.

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I do not mean by this that I believe in being ‘different’at any price. A lot has been said about the value oforiginality, and I find this foolish. Either you are originalor you are not. It is completely natural for artists to takefrom and give to each other, to borrow from and experienceone another. In my own life, my great literary experiencewas Strindberg. There are works of his which can stillmake my hair stand on end—The People of Hemso, forexample. And it is my dream to produce Dream Play someday. Olof Molander’s production of it in 1934 was for me afundamental dramatic experience.

Stop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and Think

1. Quite often a film made out of a book is not verysuccessful. Discuss.

2. What, according to Bergman, is the relationshipbetween a film-maker and his audience?

Significant Persons

On a personal level, there are many people who havemeant a great deal to me. My father and mother werecertainly of vital importance, not only in themselves butbecause they created a world for me to revolt against. Inmy family there was an atmosphere of heartywholesomeness which I, a sensitive young plant, scornedand rebelled against. But that strict middle-class homegave me a wall to pound on, something to sharpen myselfagainst. At the same time they taught me a number ofvalues—efficiency, punctuality, a sense of financialresponsibility—which may be ‘bourgeois’ but arenevertheless important to the artist. They are part of theprocess of setting oneself severe standards. Today as afilm maker I am conscientious, hard-working and extremelycareful; my films involve good craftsmanship, and my prideis the pride of a good craftsman.

Among the people who have meant something in myprofessional development is Torsten Hammaren ofGothenburg. I went there from Hälsingborg, where I hadbeen head of the municipal theatre for two years. I had no

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conception of what theatre was; Hammaren taught meduring the four years I stayed in Gothenburg. Then, whenI made my first attempts at film, Alf Sjöberg—who directedTorment—taught me a great deal. And there was LorensMarmstedt, who really taught me filmmaking from scratchafter my first unsuccessful movie. Among other things Ilearned from Marmstedt is the one unbreakable rule: youmust look at your own work very coldly and clearly; youmust be a devil to yourself in the screening room whenwatching the day’s rushes. Then there is Herbert Grevenius,one of the few who believed in me as a writer. I had troublewith script-writing, and was reaching out more and moreto the drama, to dialogue, as a means of expression. Hegave me great encouragement.

Finally, there is Carl Anders Dymling, my producer.He is crazy enough to place more faith in the sense ofresponsibility of a creative artist than in calculations ofprofit and loss. I am thus able to work with an integritythat has become the very air I breathe, and one of themain reasons I do not want to work outside of Sweden. Themoment I lose this freedom I will cease to be a film-maker,because I have no skill in the art of compromise. My onlysignificance in the world of film lies in the freedom of mycreativity.

The Tightrope of Film-making

Today, the ambitious film-maker is obliged to walk atightrope without a net. He may be a conjurer, but no oneconjures the producer, the bank director or the theatreowners when the public refuses to go see a film and laydown the money by which producer, bank director, theatreowner and conjurer can live. The conjurer may then bedeprived of his magic wand; I would like to be able tomeasure the amount of talent, initiative and creative abilitywhich has been destroyed by the film industry in itsruthlessly efficient sausage machine. What was play to meonce has now become a struggle. Failure, criticism, publicindifference all hurt more today than yesterday. The brutalityof the industry is undisguised—yet that can be an advantage.

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So much for people and the film business. I have beenasked, as a clergyman’s son, about the role of religion in mythinking and film-making. To me, religious problems arecontinuously alive. I never cease to concern myself withthem; it goes on every hour of every day. Yet this does nottake place on the emotional level, but on an intellectualone. Religious emotion, religious sentimentality, issomething I got rid of long ago—I hope. The religious problemis an intellectual one to me: the relationship of my mind tomy intuition. The result of this conflict is usually somekind of tower of Babel.

Philosophically, there is a book which was a tremendousexperience for me: Eiono Kaila’s Psychology of the Personality.

His thesis that man lives strictly according to his needs—negative and positive—was shattering to me, but terriblytrue. And I built on this ground.

Cathedral-building

People ask what are my intentions with my films—myaims. It is a difficult and dangerous question, and I usuallygive an evasive answer: I try to tell the truth about thehuman condition, the truth as I see it. This answer seemsto satisfy everyone, but it is not quite correct. I prefer todescribe what I would like my aim to be.

There is an old story of how the cathedral of Chartreswas struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Thenthousands of people came from all points of the compass,like a giant procession of ants, and together they began torebuild the cathedral on its old site. They worked until thebuilding was completed—master builders, artists, labourers,clowns, noblemen, priests, burghers. But they all remainedanonymous and no one knows to this day who built thecathedral of Chartres.

Regardless of my own beliefs and my own doubts, whichare unimportant in this connection, it is my opinion thatart lost its basic creative drive the moment it was separatedfrom worship. It severed an umbilical cord and now lives itsown sterile life, generating and degenerating itself. In formerdays the artist remained unknown and his work was to the

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glory of God. He lived and died without being more or lessimportant than other artisans; ‘eternal values’, ‘immortality’and ‘masterpiece’ were terms not applicable in his case.The ability to create was a gift. In such a world flourishedinvulnerable assurance and natural humility.

Today the individual has become the highest form andthe greatest bane of artistic creation. The smallest woundor pain of the ego is examined under a microscope as if itwere of eternal importance. The artist considers hisisolation, his subjectivity, his individualism almost holy.Thus we finally gather in one large pen, where we standand bleat about our loneliness without listening to eachother and without realising that we are smothering eachother to death. The individualists stare into each other’seyes and yet deny the existence of each other. We walk incircles, so limited by our anxieties that we can no longerdistinguish between true and false, between the gangster’swhim and the purest ideal.

Thus if I am asked what I would like the generalpurpose of my films to be, I would reply that I want to beone of the artists in the cathedral on the great plain. Iwant to make a dragon’s head, an angel, a devil—or perhapsa saint—out of stone. It does not matter which; it is thesense of satisfaction that counts. Regardless of whether Ibelieve or not, whether I am a Christian or not, I wouldplay my part in the collective building of the cathedral.

Stop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and ThinkStop and Think

1. What is the story of the Cathetdral of Chartres andhow does the author relate it to his profession?

2. What are some of the flaws of the world of film-making today?

Interview with Umberto Eco

With over 30 honorary doctorates and a string of literary and

academic awards, Umberto Eco has the reputation of being one of

the world’s foremost intellectuals. A professor at the University of

Bologna in Italy, Umberto Eco is known for his ideas on semiotics,

literary interpretation and medieval aesthetics. He is a

distinguished novelist and writer. His novel, The Name of the

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Rose, published in 1980 sold over ten million copies. Here is an

excerpt from an interview with Eco where he expresses his views

on the filming of books.

The Name of the Rose is a very serious novel. It’s a detectiveyarn at one level but it also delves into metaphysics,theology, and medieval history. Yet it enjoyed a huge massaudience. Were you puzzled at all by this?

No. Journalists are puzzled. And sometimes publishers. And this isbecause journalists and publishers believe that people liketrash and don’t like difficult reading experiences. Consider thereare six billion people in this planet. The Name of the Rose soldbetween 10 and 15 million copies. So in a way I reached only asmall percentage of readers. But it is exactly these kinds ofreaders who don’t want easy experiences. Or at least don’talways want this. I myself, at 9 pm after dinner, watch televisionand want to see either ‘Miami Vice’ or ‘Emergency Room’. I enjoyit and I need it. But not all day.

Could the huge success of the novel have anything to do withthe fact that it dealt with a period of medieval history that...

That’s possible. But let me tell you another story, because I oftentell stories like a Chinese wise man. My American publishersaid while she loved my book, she didn’t expect to sell morethan 3,000 copies in a country where nobody has seen acathedral or studies Latin. So I was given an advance for 3,000copies, but in the end it sold two or three million in the U.S.

A lot of books have been written about the medieval past farbefore mine. I think the success of the book is a mystery. Nobodycan predict it. I think if I had written The Name of the Rose tenyears earlier or ten years later, it wouldn’t have been the same.Why it worked at that time is a mystery.

What did you think about the film [directed by Jean JacquesAnnaud and starring Sean Connery]? Why weren’t you happywith it?

I expected the film to be different. My novel is a kind of clubsandwich—lettuce, tomato, cheese...

Different layers of meaning?

Yes. A film cannot select all the layers. It has to make do with jambonor cheese... I didn’t react like authors who, immediately afterthe film is made, say it is not at all like my book. But after thatexperience, I asked my publisher not to sell the rights of thenovel to cinema. I did this because I discovered that 80 percent of readers read the book after the movie. And that is verypainful for a novelist.

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But surely this also means greater success, greaterremuneration?

Yes. But it is embarrassing to know that somebody else has alreadytold the reader that the novel should be read in a particularway. That he should imagine the face of a character in aparticular way. The only enviable position is that of Homer’swho had the film made more than 2000 years after the book(laughs).

So this is why Stanley Kubrick never got to make Foucault’sPendulum?

Since I had laid down a general rule, the publisher said no. ThenStanley Kubrick died. But it may have been a great movie(laughs).

Talking about Foucault’s Pendulum, there is a sense in whichyou did the Da Vinci Code before Dan Brown did. Of course,you did it as a myth that takes on a strange reality and hedid it as it was historical truth.

I told Dan Brown’s story. My characters are his. I gave the broadpicture of this kind of literature.

MUKUND PADMANABHAN

Understanding the Text

1. Pick out examples from the text that show Bergman’s sensitivityto sensory impressions which have made him a great film-maker.

2. What do you understand of the complexity of the little invisiblesteps that go into the making of a good film?

3. What are some of the risks that film-making involves?

4. What misgivings does Bergman have about the contemporaryfilm industry?

5. Compare Bergman’s views about making films out of books withthat of Umberto Eco’s.

Talking about the Text

1. According to the author, split-second impressions form a‘mental state, not an actual story, but one abounding in fertileassociations and images’.

Compare this with Virginia Woolf’s experiment with the streamof consciousness technique in ‘The Mark on the Wall’.

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2. Bergman talks about the various influences in his life includinghis parents and his religious upbringing. To what extent arean individual’s achievements dependent on the kind ofinfluences he or she has had in life? Discuss.

Appreciation

1. Autobiographical accounts make interesting reading when theauthor selects episodes that are connected to the pursuit ofexcellence. How does this apply to Ingmar Bergman’s narrationof the details of film-making?

2. Comment on the conversational tone of the narration. Comparethis with the very informal style adopted by Umberto Eco inthe interview.

Language Work

A. Vocabulary

Find out and write down the definitions of the following termsused in the film industry

script project montage flashback

stage prop footlights

B. Grammar

We saw in the grammar section of the unit on Freedom that asentence can consist of clauses and phrases.

Let us now look at the basic form of a sentence and study itsparts. A sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. Takethe sentence

My grandmother had a very large old apartment in Uppsala.

The sentence here talks about ‘the grandmother’. ‘Thegrandmother’ is the subject of the sentence. What is said aboutthe subject ‘grandmother’ is the predicate of the sentence. ‘hada very large old apartment in Uppsala’ is the predicate.

Generally a sentence begins with the subject. The predicatebegins with a verb. ‘had’ is the verb in the example above. Thesubject answers the question ‘who’ or ‘what’ before the verb.

Question: ‘Who had?’

Answer: ‘the grandmother had’.

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The object of a sentence generally comes after the verb. Itanswers the question ‘what’ after the verb. ‘Had what?’ ‘hadan apartment’ is the answer. ‘Apartment’ is the object of thesentence. The word ‘apartment’ has an article and twoadjectives preceding it.

‘a very large old apartment’; the word ‘very’ is an intensifier forthe adjective ‘large’. We are also given information about thelocation of the apartment, ‘in Uppsala’. This is a prepositionalphrase and consists of a preposition and a noun. ‘in Uppsala’is an adjunct. It gives additional information.

TASK

Analyse the parts of the following sentences according to the pattern

above

• My association with film goes back to the world of childhood.• This is an almost impossible task.• Thus the script is a very imperfect technical basis for a film.• I would play my part in the collective building of the cathedral.• The ability to create was a gift.

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C. Pronunciation

We have seen that it is not necessary, nor desirable, topronounce every sound perfectly to be understood. Quite a lotof sounds that you might expect to hear are not actuallypronounced. In rapid speech, sounds may be left out or elided,especially when they occur as part of a cluster of consonants.For example in the phrase ‘next day’, the /t/ is lost

next/ day

TASK

Mark the consonants that are left out or elided in the following utterances

• new textbooks

• written scripts

• he must be ill

• mashed potatoes

Things to do

Think of a particular episode that could be enacted. Nowimagine that you are a scriptwriter and write the screenplayfor the first ten minutes of the episode, in the following format

Title :

Actors :

Scene -1

Description Dialogue

The column ‘Dialogue’ would contain the words to be actuallyspoken by the characters. ‘Description’ would includeinstructions regarding stage props, position of lights, movementof actors and so on.

Suggested Reading

Four Screen-plays by Ingmar Bergman.

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